Warwick Medical School named hub university for Schwartz rounds in the Midlands
The NHS is investing £490,400 to help universities in the Midlands establish Schwartz Rounds for their health and social care students and staff. Fourteen Midlands-based universities have accepted the offer to begin working with the Point of Care Foundation to establish Schwartz Rounds – making them available to around 65,000[1] students of health and social care disciplines.
Schwartz Rounds are structured, monthly forums where clinical and non-clinical staff in health and care organisations come together to share experiences and discuss the emotional and social aspects of their work. Developed by the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare (Boston, USA), they have been shown to halve rates of psychological distress among people who regularly attend[2]. They are supported in the UK and Ireland by the Point of Care Foundation, which introduced them in 2009.
As well as reducing feelings of stress and isolation at work, Schwartz Rounds can help to foster multi- and inter-professional understanding and are seen as valuable in supporting the wellbeing and development of students and early career professionals.
Participating universities will work with the Point of Care Foundation to establish Schwartz Rounds during the coming months and form a regional network of institutions. The University of Warwick and the University of Leicester are operating as ‘hub’ universities for the West and East Midlands respectively and will provide coordination and support for the network.
Laura Golding (Schwartz Rounds in Higher Education Project Lead, the Point of Care Foundation) commented: “This funding to enable universities in the Midlands to run Schwartz Rounds is very timely and welcome. Schwartz Rounds can support students’ wellbeing and capacity to offer compassionate care whilst in training – and beyond – by normalising strong emotions that arise from their work. This is an exciting opportunity that will enable many health and social care students to benefit from attending Rounds.”
Kate Owen, Director of Medical Studies at Warwick Medical School said, “We are delighted to be appointed the Midlands hub for this incredibly important initiative. We can see what a huge benefit this will be to students and ultimately the patients that they work with. Schwartz rounds are very much in keeping with the ethos of our medical programme at WMS and our Warwick Doctor values of kindness, integrity, academic rigour, support for others, humility and innovation and creativity. We are excited to get the programme started.”
This is the third NHS-funded Schwartz Rounds project in universities in England and will roughly double the number of universities running Rounds for students.
Schwartz Rounds can be established in any health or care organisation in the UK, with support from the Point of Care Foundation, which holds the license to run Rounds in the UK and Ireland.
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1 Estimate based on students taking health and social care disciplines at the 14 universities, taken from information published by Office for Students.